After seven years in Brussels as France's Permanent Representative to the European Union, Pierre Sellal, will be returning to the French foreign office on 14 April 2009, where he has been appointed the new secretary general. He has made the transition before because he has spent a total of 14 years in the capital of Europe in fact. He says he is delighted to have been a diplomat who has dealt with lifts, the internal market and fisheries over the years. He remembers having all the initial problems to put up with in the early days, like when he attended the first conciliation meeting with the European Parliament with Nicole Fontaine in 1995. Mentioning the intense satisfaction of involvement in rounds of European negotiations when they reach a positive outcome, he also remembers the bad moment when the result of the French referendum rejecting the EU Constitutional Treaty came through. “We did not hold our heads up very high the next day”, he explains but adds that the expression of democratic views had to be respected “and there was no need to let it rankle”. “One of the paradoxes of enlargement to 27 countries is that COREPER meetings take less time these days because there are fewer round-the-table discussions”, explains Pierre Sellal, who has also noticed that the European Commission is taking far less of a proactive role in negotiations. It is as though “the Commission's role ends when it has proposed legislation”, he adds, highlighting “the crucial importance of the Presidency”. The Presidency of the Council now has to be “far more rigorous in its planning”, because of the very busy agenda of the European Parliament while at the same time “being much more flexible, keeping on top of a range of issues and allowing others to slide”. Either way, Pierre Sellal recognises: “Europe always works best when it has its back against the wall”. (O.J./transl.fl)